Matt Damon + Satire + Serious Message = Gold

Here’s a clever approach to getting your message out.

Take a celebrity (Matt Damon), add satire and a serious message and you’ve got yourself some marketing gold. Even without the celebrity, I think this would work. If you can make us laugh while slipping in some serious facts, we’re more likely to remember them (I’m sure there some science to back up my last statement, but don’t ask me for it right now). The celebrity and satire factors made me want to watch it (especially after Damon’s work with Sarah Silverman in the past). While watching, I absorbed some fact that I can recall several minutes later: 780m people without access to toilets (the invention that has saved the most human lives in history) and 2.5B people without access to clean water. See – it worked. I was paying attention to what he said because I was expecting him to make me laugh. Instead, I learned some facts – and then got a few laughs towards the end of the clip for my trouble. Remember this format.